Brand Designing - Traditions to Digital Age

"When the saint preaches tranquility of life, artist preaches tranquility of design", said Van Zeller. If you say art and business walk side by side then it is not wrong. To brand a product or company, it should be well designed.

"Branding is design because every consumer’s contact with a brand involves the name, product itself, the logo, the colors, the signature tune, the advertising, the packaging, the store", says Sujata Guha.

The three key rules of marketing are brand recognition, brand recognition and brand recognition. To carve or enhance brand recognition, excellence in design is required.

Designing may be a conventional concept for most of us but designing a brand is becoming creative and unconventional profession for business. Craft and thoughts walk together in brand designing. Converting shapes in special symbolization with purpose and hints is creation after every brand.

Brand Design

"Brand equity is built upon the emotional meanings of brand design and brand promotion. It is not dependent upon its sources of production or the source of its company ownership", says M Kotler.

Brand designing is accountable for the visual articulation of brands across all packaging and promotions. Brand design solutions connect with consumers, build brand loyalty, and produce superior quality packaging to achieve competitive edge in the marketplace.

It is an art and a science. The art is in interpreting key competitive advantages visually. The science is in knowing how to use any and all media available to connect you with your audience.

What do you need to know while designing a brand?

If we go to understand ‘Brand" then in simple terms, " Brand is name, term, sign, symbol, design or combination of all." Brand design is an enhancement in current brand look.

Describing brand design in detail, Paul Barlow says, "Brand design encompasses a vast array of design disciplines, from traditional graphic skills to digital design, broadcast animation, retail, interiors and even architecture. Now products themselves are coming under the wing of brand design as each and every manifestation of an organization starts to communicate the brand values".

Elements

The most powerful element in process of brand designing is ‘Color’.

Color

Get attention. Use color like red, yellow, black or any bright color that gets you to notice. However building synergy requires balance of proportions, position of product and its category according to product. The powerful color does not only represent its strength but also its stability too. For example, the design of XEROX - The Document Company uses blue, black, red, yellow and green circles, which explains color when you need it.

Style

The best layout that provides maximum stands out an effect for brand. An artistic movement minimalism ICICI uses it with overlapping of orange and brown rounds and in between the use of text with bold transparent "I". The launch campaign for Hutch by Ogilvy uses minimalist aesthetics to powerful effect- the large, blank "white spaces" with a tight close-up of a smiling face, and a crisp, bold "Hi" was striking, and immediately moved Hutch into a league all its own.

Border

Music is hidden but greatly integrated element in brand designing. Designing is not limited only to color and curves. Use of special theme and establish a new identity in ever-present way. Take the jingles of Nescafe or Titan. Airtel reached to new frontiers in branding when it unveiled A R Rehman’s catchy signature theme and used it to actually define the brand.

Designing Digital Economy

Moving to digital economy, on the Internet, you only have one second to make a powerful impression, to establish your professionalism and start building trust, to generate the interest of your target audience and to begin downloading your value proposition and to initiate compelling sales overture.

Brand designing in an e-commerce perspective is more than just aesthetically pleasing graphic design. The design of the graphic user interfaces on the Internet is often of critical importance. Full of brand-building Flash, sluggish multimedia plug-ins, overindulgent mission statements or content that serves no end. Have a tactical rationale for the placement of every graphic, every image and every word. Thus design knowledge based brand.

In the design process, companies can integrate knowledge of their customers’ needs and wishes directly with new knowledge about materials and design - or with knowledge about the new opportunities that lie in the use of information and communication technology to profile themselves and their products.

Source:

1. Branding Design – By Arvind Lodaya.
2. Minister’s speech at the Pan European Brand Design Association’s conference "Electronic Brand Design")
3. "The Art of eCommerce Web Design" By Jane Pepperin (2002) Sitepoint.com
4. Goodgraphics.com